Shanty town: A man tries to pull a wooden pillar from an abandoned raised-floor house

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England fans will risk their lives in one of the world’s most dangerous cities as they cheer on the team in its first match of the World Cup in Brazil, the Sunday People reports.

Roy Hodgson’s men play four-time champions Italy on June 14 next year in the crime-ridden hell-hole that is the Amazonian capital Manaus.

The poverty-stricken city had an incredible 945 homicides last year, 70 per cent of them linked to drug ­trafficking. Armed and drug-crazed thieves roam shanty towns which are no-go areas for tourists.

The statistics led to it being branded the 11th most dangerous place on earth. And despite the grimness of Manaus, fans can look forward to paying rip-off prices there.

Last night there were just a handful of rooms still available in the isolated city. Hotel bosses are ruthlessly cashing in by demanding up to £500 a night for a basic room around the date of the Italy match.

The cheapest flights from London Heathrow to Manaus go via Lisbon and cost a whopping £1,200.

And fans staying in Rio de Janeiro, alongside England’s players, face a mammoth 3,500-mile round trip to Manaus. The journey takes four hours each way by plane – or ten days by road and boat.

A basic travel package with the FA, including ­tickets, travel and accommodation to England’s three group games, will set fans back £7,000.

Individual match tickets are already being touted on the black market for more than £1,000.

Alison McGowan, a British ex-pat who runs an independent travel website in Brazil, said: “Manaus is going to ­almost break the bank, however you do it.

“Fans will find it is lacking in hotel provision of any quality. They won’t be cheap either.”

Visitors to the city have ­described filthy rooms and kitchens full of “bugs, cockroaches and rats” on travel website Tripadvisor.

Ramshackle tin-shack homes in the city’s lawless districts, called favelas, are painted different colours to signal to ­locals which varieties of class-A drugs they sell.

The Foreign Office has warned fans to be on their guard against robbers and pickpockets. The advice is to dress down and avoid wearing jewellery. Meanwhile the NHS has issued an alert over the threat of rabies from stray dogs and diseases such as malaria, diphtheria and hepatitis.

Daytime temperatures in Manaus average 32 degrees and humidity can top 84 per cent. Other risks in the area include poisonous snakes and tarantulas, poorly maintained roads and low standards of driving.

Manaus was once one of Brazil’s most prosperous cities due to its ­monopoly on rubber production but it is now one of its most dangerous and deprived and brutal cocaine barons have taken over.

They are so feared that judges are given 24-hour protection by an elite police squad.

Before last week’s draw, Hodgson provoked fury in the city after telling reporters he hoped his team would not have to play there.

Mayor Arthur Virgilio Neto responded indignantly, saying he did not want the Three Lions there and was hoping for a “better national team”.

But yesterday he congratulated England for “having the privilege of playing in Manaus”. Sao Paulo, where England face Uruguay in their second group match, is ranked the world’s 48th most dangerous place.

It has an extremely high rate of armed robbery of pedestrians, motorists and customers in restaurants.

Bookmakers moved England’s odds of winning the tournament from 22-1 to 33-1 after Friday’s draw matched them with Italy, Uruguay and Costa Rica in Group D.

FA officials now fear that only around 1,100 members of their official supporters club will travel to Brazil.